Helena Rubinstein used guile, brilliant branding, and more than a few falsehoods to lift cosmetics from an accessory for prostitutes to a desired luxury item. Geoffrey Jones reveals her history.
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For the last five decades, research on the multidivisional firm has developed into one of the most important areas of management research. While the majority of this research deals with the firm's portfolio of businesses and international subsidiaries, there is a smaller but significant body of literature on the corporate headquarters (CHQ) - the multidivisional firm's central organizational unit. In this paper, the authors identify major shortcomings and gaps in this research. They then propose five high-priority research opportunities that demand particular attention: (1) The CHQ's nature and boundaries; (2) the CHQ's "functioning"; (3) the CHQ's staff(ing); (4) the CHQ's relationship with the operating units; and (5) the CHQ's impact. Overall, there is a need for a research agenda that builds upon the collective insights from the review but, at the same time, considers the findings of related literature as well as novel ideas from practice. Key concepts include: Research on the CHQ is increasingly disconnected. It has developed along four different tracks in the economic, organization, international business, and practice-oriented traditions. The authors of this paper provide the first comprehensive framework of CHQ research that integrates dispersed insights, identifies the most relevant variables of interest, and specifies the dominant relationships between them. The CHQ is defined as the firm's central organizational unit, (structurally) separated from the operating units (business and geographic units). It hosts corporate executives and staff as well as central staff functions that fulfill various roles for the overall firm. Research on the CHQ has the unique potential to contribute to our understanding of contemporary organizations.
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At 136 years old, the Washington Post has reported on critical news events over the decades. Now the sale of the Post to Jeff Bezos is itself a game changer, for digital media. Harvard Business School strategy experts Bharat Anand and David Collis read between the lines.
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Are small headquarters more nimble and efficient than large ones? Not necessarily, according to HBS adjunct professor David Collis and coauthors David Young and Michael Goold. Even within a single industry in one country, the variance can be enormous: In Germany in the late 1990s, for instance, Hoechst, the chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturer, had only 180 people in the headquarters function at the same time that Bayer had several thousand. This paper seeks to fill gaps in the research by using a unique database of over 600 companies in seven countries to determine whether systematic differences in the size and roles of corporate headquarters between countries actually exist, and if so, how they differ. In particular, the authors examine whether there is a systematic difference between market- and bank-centered economies, and between developed and developing countries. Key concepts include: Contrary to popular expectations, corporate headquarters in the United States are about twice the size of European counterparts yet appear to be more effective. It is not universally valuable to have small corporate headquarters. While companies with small headquarters can be successful, it is clear that larger headquarters can also be correlated with high performance and executive satisfaction with their role and cost- effectiveness. Japanese headquarters are substantially larger than elsewhere—a factor of nearly four times Europe. However, those headquarters are becoming smaller because of dissatisfaction with their performance. The developing country model of headquarters appears to fit none of the developed country models. There is no "market-centered" and "bank-centered" model of corporate headquarters, suggesting that at the level of key corporate decisions, other phenomenon have important independent influences. The size and role of corporate headquarters vary widely both between countries and within countries. There is more variation within each country than there is between countries.
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Is a lean headquarters operation the key to success? How should headquarters design fit with corporate strategy? New research from professor David J. Collis has surprising answers.
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